SAN ANTONIO—There was a stretch, in the third quarter of Game 2 of the Western Conference finals here at AT&T Center, in which everything Tony Parker did went just right. With 7:27 to play in the period, he

pulled up for a 17-footer just outside the right elbow and rattled it in. He pulled up for a jumper 38 seconds later from almost the same spot, and knocked that in, too. Another 38 seconds after that, he got into the lane and located forward Kawhi Leonard for a corner 3-pointer, which Leonard made. Then, in a rarity, Parker himself lined up a 3-point shot in the right corner with 5:15 to play. It was good, and the shot capped a 10-2 run that gave the Spurs a 20-point lead.

The Thunder would come back, and get as close as six points, but in the end, the Spurs held on for a Parker-fueled 120-111 win and a 2-0 series lead, stretching their winning streak to 20 games and putting them two wins away from the NBA Finals. While Parker wasn’t flawless for all 39 minutes he was on the floor, he was close, finishing with 34 points (on 16-for-21 shooting), eight assists and just two turnovers, a big leap from his Game 1 performance, in which he shot 6-for-15 from the field and committed four turnovers.

“Tony’s been great all year,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s really been focused the entire season. What he did tonight, we’ve seen many times before, so it’s not a surprise. He was excellent. He played a fantastic game in a lot of ways.”

This is Parker’s 11th season with Popovich, and Popovich has called it Parker’s best year in the NBA, one in which he averaged a career-high 18.3 points and 7.7 assists. Anyone who has followed the dynamics of the Parker-Popovich relationship over the years knows that there has to be some satisfaction on Parker’s part to hear his coach speak about him so glowingly—even back when Parker was helping the Spurs to the ’03 championship, he was often the target of Popovich ire in practice and criticism in the media.

After all, Popovich’s first point guard was Avery Johnson, a gritty, smart, veteran point guard whose game couldn’t be much different than that of Parker, the sleek, quick and high-scoring Frenchman who came into the league at just 19 years old. For years, the story of Parker’s time with the Spurs was one of him trying to figure out how be himself, while still delivering the kind of point-guard play that Popovich wanted.

“It’s always been a battle my whole career, when you’re a scoring point guard and Pop wants you to score, then he wants you to pass. Then he wants you to score, then he wants you to pass. I would go back and forth," Parker said. "It’s always been the biggest room for me to improve, to find that happy middle between scoring and passing, and find that good balance. I think over the years I got better at it, finding my spots, when to score and when to pass the ball.”

He was spot-on in his decision making here in Game 2, and he drove San Antonio’s offensive performance. Parker was accurate from all over the floor, making six shots in the paint, three from around the right elbow, six midrange shots from just left of the lane and the corner 3. With 120 points, the Spurs have now reached triple-digits in 18 games on their 20-win streak, and are averaging 104.1 points per game in the playoffs (on 49.4 percent shooting). While the Spurs’ depth is the key to their ability to put up big scoring numbers, as the point guard, Parker is usually the catalyst.

Popovich even gave his team a notable, if tepid, compliment, agreeing with the notion that the offense is one of the best he has had in his tenure as San Antonio’s coach. “We’ve had some good ball movement with other teams that we’ve had here, but I think that the combination of penetrate-and-pitch, and post-up with Timmy (Duncan) is probably the best that we’ve had. Other teams were more half-court. This team has more pace to it than what we’ve had in the past.”

That is, in part, because of the play of Parker, who had eight of the Spurs’ 27 assists. During the regular season, the Spurs ranked fourth in the league in assists (23.2 per game), and in the playoffs, they’re averaging 24.2 assists. If the Spurs have an exceptional penchant for moving the ball, that has a lot to do with Popovich.

“When you have Coach Pop screaming at you every day, it will make you pass the ball,” Parker said. “He is always big on, you have to find a better shot. Always trying to find the better shot, the better shot all season long, make the extra pass. You know, we have great shooters on the team. We have guys who can penetrate and find open guys, so we like to play like that.”

Make no mistake, Popovich hasn’t changed, as Parker indicates. He’s still a yeller, the high-decibel instruction still finds its way to his point guard, in practice and during games—even during Parker’s

near-perfect Game 2. But, heck, Popovich still yells at Tim Duncan. The relationship between Popovich and Parker is different now, with Parker more understanding of his coach’s methods, and Popovich’s criticism of Parker less frequent and more even-handed.

Even Popovich has grown to appreciate the talents of his point guard, to smile more about the positive than harp on the negative. Parker’s play in Game 2 showed why.